#Who owns wechat registration#

It should have been a simple account ownership question for Tencent to resolve, particularly for a high-profile account like the Prime Minister of Australia,' Mr Potter said. 'Selling the account is against the Terms of Service of WeChat. Robert Potter, founder of Canberra-based cyber security firm Internet 2.0, said the reasons why the account was sold or purchased were less important than the behaviour of Tencent. Selling an account is also against the rules governing WeChat, although it is still a relatively common practice in China. ( ABC News: Nick Haggarty)įergus Ryan, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said it was 'risky and ill-advised' for the Prime Minister's Office to register a Chinese national for the account but said it would still be best for both Labor and the Coalition to simply boycott WeChat because of the risk of censorship on the platform. Scott Morrison's WeChat public account was used to deliver political messaging to Chinese Australian voters.

WeChat is owned by Tencent, which isn’t a household name in the US, but is one of the most valuable companies in the world. The ban follows an executive order against the app in August that barred US companies and individuals from making any transactions with WeChat. Mr Morrison's WeChat public account was opened by Mr Ji in January 2019 and was used to deliver political messaging to Chinese Australian voters. The Trump administration has banned WeChat in the US beginning on Sunday. It also runs QQ, an older messaging service, and has a stake in Kakao (Economist. The ABC has previously identified 12 Australian politicians with WeChat accounts registered in other people's names in China, including government ministers. Tencent, Alibaba's rival, owns WeChat, which has almost 400 million users.

Contact Echo Hui on Signal: +61 468 306 302 and on Protonmail: Please use this form to get in contact with the ABC Investigations team, or if you require more secure communication, please choose an option on the confidential tips page.

#Who owns wechat registration#

WeChat's rules also state that 'the initial registration applicant shall not … permit any non-initial registration applicant to use the Weixin account.' Do you know more? The agency used a Chinese national – in this case Mr Ji - as the account operator, in order to circumvent WeChat's regulations, which do not allow foreign nationals to operate public accounts. Like several other Western politicians, Mr Morrison's office set up a WeChat account through a Chinese agency.

The ABC has been unable to contact Mr Ji and does not know why he made the sale or whether he did so willingly. Mr Huang would not say how much he paid for the account and said he would not hand it back to the Prime Minister's Office, because the transfer of ownership had been approved by WeChat.